Playing White against odd Black defences after 1.e4 (2)

The trouble with the Pirc is that Black will just lurk behind
his pawns, and your pieces won't find much to attack. I play the
Pirc/Modern as Black, and am always more impressed by systems which
threaten to open lines with pawn breaks than any of the piece play
lines. But that's not to say they aren't all dangerous; the player
with a plan will always beat the player without one.

There are two principal 'piece play' lines available:

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nf3 g6 4. Bc4 Bg7 5.
Qe2

White concentrates on rapid development and aims at a timely
e5.

The other line I have in mind is:

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Be3 Bg7 5.
Qd2

Now the simple idea is to play the standard attack with O-O-O,
f3, g4, h4, Nge2-g3 and h5. Let's see this in action:

Hort,V - Rota [B07], Aachen/SW,16,18

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Be3 Bg7 5. Qd2 O-O 6.
O-O-O

6... c6 7. Bh6 b5 8. f3 a5 9. h4 b4 10. Na4 Bd7 11.
h5

11... Nxh5 12. Rxh5 Bxh6

[12... gxh5 13. Qg5 b3 14. Qxg7#]

13. Rxh6 c5 14. Rh2 1-0

This plan depends a little on Black castling King's side,
although it will not have guaranteed safety on the other side, nor
in the centre. See the example games.

The basic idea is to develop the King's side pieces quickly, and
play c3 and d4 (very much the same plan as the normal 1. e4 e5
openings).

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3

Now Black has a basic choice between 2...d6, 2...Nc6 and 2...e6.
Alternatives are less strong, e.g. 2...a6 3. c4 or 2...Nf6 3. e5.
These should not be scorned - GMs have played each line - but are
less good for Black than normal lines.

2...d6

[after 2... e6 White can play an interesting gambit,
borrowed from a variation of the English Opening: 3. Be2 Nc6 4. b4
Nxb4

Now, I have found a few of these. With the P on e6, Black is
necessarily a little more passive than the Caro lines above. I
don't think White can claim much advantage (indeed, John Watson
reckons that the Pf4 may be in the way of the Bc1), but it's an
easy line to understand.

This is another system where the White side is easy to
understand, and where Black has struggled to find a clear
equaliser. 2. f4 can lead to the slow Sicilian with g3 and Bg2, but
several English players have adopted the more aggressive system
with Bc4. We will look at both systems.

A second idea is to play Bb5xNc6 and then play a slow
Dutch-style attack with Qe1 and Qh4.

This line has been adopted by three World champions at one time
or another: the young Karpov, the mature Spassky, and by Smyslov
throughout his chess career. And as we shall see, Kasparov knows
about the line.

Quotes

"When it is so freely asserted that Morphy's style was all genius and inspiration ... Morphy possessed that most profound book knowledge of any master of his time, and never introduced a single novelty, whereas since his day the books have had to study the players... We may all learn from Morphy and Anderssen how to conduct a King's side attack, and perhaps I myself may not have learnt enough.